Great shot of these beautiful doors. I was going to add that Pugin would be proud... According to this page here, (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=50179#s7), he ought to be; the architect was one of his pupils.

I enjoy touring churches in and around London. But I both laugh and curse whenever I go to the more "popular" Church of England parishes. There is, almost universally, an admission charge to view the church. This is despite a generous stipend from the Crown (well, from the taxpayers, actually).

At the same time, the Catholic churches have an open door policy where anyone and everyone is welcome without any required donation. Even more galling when you realise that the oldest of the churches were built by the Catholic Church!

Which reminds me to ask, have you been to St. Ethelreda's (Ely Place, just off Holborn Circus?) It's the oldest church in all of London, and the "first" (i.e. only) church "returned" to the Catholics. The quotes around returned are because the Anglican parish went bankrupt, and the Rosminian order (Catholic) bought it at auction. Which was then invalidated. They won the auction as second time, so it was decided to let the sale stand.

And it's a beautiful little church reputed to have some of the best music in the city. And don't forget to tour the basement.

imajoebob - I know exactly what you mean, I refuse to pay for entrance on principle. One of the big problems with the C of E (as I understand it) is that they lost a bundle on some very speculative investments. My heart bleeds. Mostly, you can manage to get in if you time it right, though.

Have I been here before? Well yes very much so, in my very first month. It was also one of those places I wanted to write a lot more, but I try to stick to this format with one paragraph mostly. Maybe I ought to go back, but up to now I've made a point of not going back anywhere. As a pointer, there is a search box in the top navigation bar, and I've always tried to include a straight description, which helps find stuff. 700 pictures along, there's quite some coverage. Haven't run out of places yet, though!